Howard claims victory in national culture wars

Related coverage

JOHN Howard has called for fundamental change in how children
are taught Australian history, and claimed victory in the culture
wars, including the end of the "divisive, phoney debate about
national identity".

In an Australia Day eve address to the National Press Club, Mr
Howard exhorted a "coalition of the willing" to promote changes to
the teaching of history, which he said was neglected in schools and
too often questioned or repudiated the nation's achievements.

Approaching his 10th anniversary as Prime Minister, Mr Howard
also hailed research showing that fewer Australians were ashamed of
the nation's past. "I welcome this corrective in our national sense
of self."

Mr Howard came to office mounting an assault on "political
correctness" of the Keating era, sceptical of what he saw as
excesses of multiculturalism, and critical of the "black armband"
view of relations with Aborigines.

He said in his speech yesterday that Australia had now
successfully rebalanced national identity and ethnic diversity.

"We've drawn back from being too obsessed with diversity to a
point where Australians are now better able to appreciate the
enduring values of the national character that we proudly celebrate
and preserve," he said.

Mr Howard said that while on Australia Day we should celebrate
our diversity we should also affirm the "one people, one destiny"
sentiment that propelled Federation.

As an extra 1200 police were rostered for duty in Sydney today
to deal with any anti-social behaviour, Mr Howard condemned racial
intolerance but called for a balanced response to the Cronulla
riots.

"The criminal behaviour of last December should be met with the
full force of the law. I do not believe it calls for either
national self-flagellation or moral panic," he said.

He called for "root and branch renewal" of history teaching in
schools  increasing the number of students who studied it and
overhauling the way it was taught. Fewer than a quarter of senior
secondary students took a history subject, and only a fraction of
this study was Australian history, he said.

"Too often, it is taught without any sense of structured
narrative, replaced by a fragmented stew of 'themes' and 'issues',"
Mr Howard said. "And too often, history, along with other subjects
in the humanities, has succumbed to a postmodern culture of
relativism where any objective record of achievement is questioned
or repudiated.

"Part of preparing young Australians to be informed and active
citizens is to teach them the central currents of our nation's
development."

He said the content should include indigenous history. It should
also cover "the great and enduring heritage of Western
civilisation, those nations that became the major tributaries of
European settlement and in turn a sense of the original ways in
which Australians from diverse backgrounds have created our own
distinct history", he said.

"Young people are at risk of being disinherited from their
community if that community lacks the courage and confidence to
teach its history."

This applied to seventh generation Australians or indigenous
children as it did to recent migrants and young Australian Muslims,
he said.

He warned those wanting change would face "tremendous
resistance" from some of the education bureaucracies.

In the 21st century, maintaining social cohesion would be the
highest test of the Australian achievement, Mr Howard said.
"Australia's ethnic diversity is one of the enduring strengths of
our nation. Yet our celebration of diversity must not be at the
expense of the common values that bind us together."

"Nor should it be at the expense of ongoing pride in what are
commonly regarded as the values, traditions and accomplishments of
the old Australia."

Mr Howard said no one sat a test of "Australianness" but those
who came to this country were expected to commit to its democratic
values and master the common language of English.

Most nations had some cultural diversity while also having a
dominant cultural pattern. Australia's dominant pattern included
Judeo-Christian ethics and the values of British political culture,
with the democratic temper also bearing the imprint of Irish
influence.

On the same day that new figures revealed fewer than half of
working-age Aborigines had jobs, Mr Howard said Australians had not
lost sight of the past mistakes and injustices to Aborigines. There
was further to go on the road to reconciliation and the Government
was willing to meet the indigenous communities more than
half-way.

With the 40th anniversary next year of the 1967 referendum
giving the federal Government constitutional power over Aboriginal
affairs, "our aim should be to deepen this legacy".

Mr Howard said the "phoney debate" about national identity and
what it meant for our influence in the world "has been finally laid
to rest".

Australia did not have to "smother or apologise for our place in
the Western political tradition in order to build our relationships
in Asia or in any other part of the world".

He warned that, in the search for the right balance in the age
of terrorism between the legitimate interest of the community and
individual civil rights, a bill of rights was not the way to go. "I
believe it would lessen our ability to manage and resolve conflict
in a free society." Victoria has proposed a charter of human
rights.

Leading historian Stuart Macintyre said Mr Howard's concern
about Australian history teaching was a bit late. "It's 10 years
into his prime ministership, and people have been calling his
attention to the problem for some time," he said.

Professor Macintyre chaired a federal inquiry in 2000 into the
teaching of history, which found it was being crowded out of the
curriculum, and that many primary teachers were inadequately
trained to teach it.

Professor Macintyre dismissed Mr Howard's view that the teaching
of history had succumbed to a culture where "any objective record
of achievement is questioned or repudiated".

"The difficulties arise when people believe there is a single
established narrative of Australian history that needs to be taught
to kids," he said.

He said that history by its nature involved interpretation. "The
way a Turk understands Gallipoli is not the same way an Australian
understands it."

Annabele Astbury, of Victoria's History Teachers Association,
said students needed more than just one "dry" structured narrative
of Australian history.

One reason senior students abandoned Australian history was that
they were taught the same course from primary school. "By the time
they get to a senior level, the students aren't engaged, and are
perhaps disillusioned with the stories that Australian history has
to offer."

Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said Mr Howard
was speaking as if the national inquiry never happened. "If he is
so concerned about history teaching he should ask Brendan Nelson
what he has been doing for the past four years."